Wayland resident pens career development guide

To share his expertise with others, Christopher Wilson has written "BA to Boardroom With No BS, Skills for Life." While targeted at the recent college graduate market, the book can also serve as a resource for others, including adults starting or re-starting their career.

By Bob Tremblay/Daily News staff

Milford Daily News

By Bob Tremblay/Daily News staff

Posted Sep. 16, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Sep 16, 2013 at 4:04 PM

By Bob Tremblay/Daily News staff

Posted Sep. 16, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Sep 16, 2013 at 4:04 PM

WAYLAND

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Christopher Wilson knows his way around the boardroom.

During his 30 years in the mutual fund business, Wilson served as president and CEO of Columbia Funds for Columbia Management, a division of Bank of America. Among his honors was being named Mutual Fund Leader of the Year in 2007 by the publication Money Management Executive. He currently serves on the board of directors of ISO New England Inc., an independent, nonprofit organization which manages the region's electrical grid and wholesale electric market.

Additional board work has included serving on the board of governors of the Investment Company Institute, the board of directors of the National Investment Company Service Association, the board of trustees of Lesley University, the board at Lake Forest College and the board at the Carroll Center for the Blind.

Wilson is also a private investor and has been involved in starting up businesses in the energy, technology, medical technology and entertainment fields in addition to advising on various mutual fund merger activities. To share his expertise with others, the Wayland resident has written "BA to Boardroom With No BS, Skills for Life." While targeted at the recent college graduate market, the book can also serve as a resource for others, including adults starting or re-starting their career.

ANSWER: A convergence of two trends. First, much is being written about people having a tough time entering the workforce and reentering the workforce. There's global competition, the need to specialized knowledge and the economic challenges of high unemployment. In talking with many people, especially soon to be or recent graduates, they are all looking for ways to carve out a place for their career and compete and advance. Undertones of discouragement and frustration are common and we all need to help them overcome these. Second, I have two daughters in their 20s and see what they and their friends are doing to advance their own careers.

I have always had a belief that, while knowledge is important for career advancement, skills are equally (or more) important. Skills can also be learned by everyone and will position people to take advantage of opportunities for growth. I want to motivate people to work on self-improvement and give them a practical, usable and entertaining guide to do so.

As I worked my way from a customer service telephone representative to president and CEO of Columbia Funds, I benefited from many great mentors. This book is a mentor at your fingertips that gleans insights from that 30-year progression of career success. I wanted to share these with younger people because I strongly believe they can have equal success with the right guidance.

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Q: What is the book about?

A: This book outlines more than 40 different skill sets people need to be successful in their careers. Using entertaining and insightful stories from 30 years in the financial services business in Boston (Fidelity, Scudder, Columbia) I illustrate how these skills are used and can help a person improve.

The book also provides ways to motivate yourself and gives you the process to follow to add the skills. It is a practical and tangible book that doesn't waste readers' time. I know from many experiences anyone entering the workforce are not interested in excess reading.

So the book has stories to illustrate the skills, outlines of the important features of each skill and a learning process for applying the skills in your daily life. The skills are individual skills such as resume writing, interviewing and managing up to a new boss, management skills such as building a team, communication skills and personality styles and leadership skills such as influencing without power, driving high performance and situational leadership. It is a book that can be a reference tool for years. It took me 30 years to acquire all the skills.

Q: What job experience helped you write this book?

A: As I moved through my career, I was faced with many opportunities to contribute, then to manage and ultimately to lead companies. Each of the rungs in the corporate ladder presented opportunities to acquire skills and I collected new skills along the way.

I progressed from working on my own individual skills to becoming a better manager and finally to leading a company as a CEO. Each job, through successes and more challenging times, built new capabilities that I would use and re-use as I progressed. I found that I began coaching many people on these skills as I moved ahead and numerous people encouraged me to write this book as I worked with them.

Q: Who should buy this book? In other words, who will benefit most from reading it?

A: Definitely any young adult in college or who recently graduated from college. They can all accelerate their learning and will be more successful at any path they choose.

The book would also help parents and grandparents of young adults/college students who want to give them positive support and actionable ways to improve. This is an upbeat book that will provide real support and it is easier to read it then talk about it than say it directly as any parent knows.

It an also be used by career counseling professionals and teachers/professors who talk with students about life after college as well as management teams looking for a common language to use to drive better team performance.

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Q: Is this your first book? Do you have others planned?

A: Yes, it is and it was very enlightening to realize how challenging it is to write a good book. I am blessed to be married to an author who already has two books out so chances are we will keep writing. There are a couple of natural sequels to this work that I will be pursuing that expand on the leadership portion of the book.

Q: What has been the reaction to the book? Any reviews?

A: Yes, there have been very positive reviews from readers of all ages. They are on the Amazon site but here's one:

"This is one of those essential life guides that everyone should have, not to sit on the (actual and virtual) bookshelf, but to return to over and over. How to think through life's choices, how to remember what matters, how to ask the right questions, and how to say what needs to be said. All told in an engaging and conversational style, Wilson has been there and has observed others do it right and wrong. A perfect gift from parents to young people as they start out in their careers, but they might have trouble actually handing it over once they start reading it themselves - so best to buy two copies! This is really for anybody who wants to think carefully about how to take charge of life's transitions."

A: Amazon in both hard copy and Kindle. Barnes & Noble and other retailers also carry the book. Other ebook formats are now up.

Q: Who is the publisher?

A: The publisher is a company my wife, Terry Wise, and I started called The Missing Peace LLC. She is an author and speaker in the mental health field and we published her books in the last two years through our publishing company.